Not what it seems
by Pittbirdy
Summary: Oneshots, in which the noble families of Westeros are all supernaturals in secret. Or perhaps, it’s not so secret after all.
1. Wolf’s-blood

_Disclaimer: Characters and world belong to George R. R. Martin. I do not claim any ownership over the characters or the world of Game of Thrones. This story is for entertainment only and is not part of the official storyline.  
_

**Wolf's blood**

The moon is full tonight, but hidden by dark clouds. The summer snows cover the ground in a blanket of white. Beneath the red leaves of the weirwood tree, Jon likes to think he is in a different world, where he is as normal as any other, and where he is not alone.

Someone drapes a warm cloak across his shivering form, and when Jon looks up, he sees his father standing next to him, a warm smile on his face. It almost makes him forget the last hour, when he'd been running through the woods on four feet, wind blowing through his silver fur.

'Our ancestors were given magic by the gods, Jon. The blood of the First Men flows through your veins as well as your siblings', and now it is up to you to use this gift wisely.'

_I'm not a Stark_, Jon wishes to say, but he knows Father's answer to that, so instead he asks:

'So the legends are true? The Starks, the Lannisters... the Targaryens?'

'I don't know', Father admits, and sits down next to him. His eyes are glowing silver in the light of the moon, and Jon wonders how he can control himself so well.

'But I do know this. Winter is coming, and in winter, we must protect ourselves, look after one another.'

Jon knows the words. He has heard them since he was a child.

'When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.'


	2. A-lion’s-fangs

A lion's fangs

'I hear we might be neighbours soon,' ser Jaime says, strategically placing himself so that he blocks Ned's path.

In the warm firelight, the Kingslayer looks as pale as his white cloak, and his eyes are pitch black, filled with hatred.

'I hope it's true', he continues, when Ned doesn't answer.

He leans closer, and the ice-cold breath in Ned's ear sends shivers down his spine.

'It might be good to have you in the field. The competition has become a bit stale, Wolf.'

The Kingslayer gives him a knowing look, and Ned realizes that the young man doesn't seem much older than that day he found him in the throne room. He shakes the thought away, and says:

'I don't fight in tournaments, because when I fight a man for real, I don't want him to know what I can do.'

The Kingslayer gapes at him for a long moment before recovering himself.

'Well said!', he tells Ned, then draws his mouth into a broad grin. The light reflects on his too white teeth, and for the flick of a second, Eddard thinks he glimpses long fangs, but then the Kingslayer turns his back to him and stalks off.


	3. A-lion’s-fangs-2

**A lion's fangs II**

The sun is hot on his face, heart beating in his lungs. The dusty street is half cast in the shadows, the Kingslayer's blade a beacon of silver light as he pokes it at Ned's chest. Jory's crumpled body lies at the false knight's feet, like vanquished prey.

'Come, Stark', ser Jaime drawls. He tosses his sword aside, eyes glinting with madness.

'Let's do this the old way. Unless you're afraid?'

'Are you?'

Ned looks at Jory's corpse, discarded in the dirt, and for the first time, he doesn't want to hold it in.

A red-brown direwolf fights a beast with fangs and claws- _vampire, Old Nan used to call it_\- and they are nearly equally matched, if not for the beams of sun that burn the Kingslayer's skin and make him roar out in anger. Then someone shoves a spear through Ned's leg, and the pain turns him back into a man. Through tear-blurred eyes, he watches the Kingslayer set his curved teeth into the soldier's throat, but before he has to witness the rest of this brutal feeding, he loses consciousness, thank the gods.


	4. Seelie-court

Seelie court

Margaery Tyrell is all smiles and giggles, a warm, lovely girl with a radiant smile.

Cersei hates her.

The girl stinks of roses and enchants men with just a flick of her lashes.

In fact, all the Tyrells are this way. Charming, smiling, a bit mischievous sometimes, and if Cersei had still had a beating heart, she would have ripped it out, root and stem, just so that she wouldn't have to endure those giddy flowers for another moment.

Tyrion, the little beast, seems rather charmed by all of it.

'Have you seen their ears?', he tells her one day.

'A bit pointy, I noticed. They say you must never accept food or drink from a Tyrell, or you will be forced to feast from dawn till dusk, for the rest of your life. Do you think lady Margaery has offered our dear king a cup of wine? Joffrey is completely smitten...'

She throws her glass at him, and misses. The wine drips from the wall, sticky and red as blood. She thinks of her marriage to Loras Tyrell, and wonders what the blood of faeries tastes like.


	5. Not-today

Not today

_'Wolf's blood, my father used __to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch.'_

Arya is not stupid. She saw Robb and Jon sneak off into the night once, so she knows her family's secret. She knows that father has the wolf's blood in him, and all of his children. She knows she has it, and that one day, she will be able to use it. So when Tywin Lannister asks her what they say about Robb Stark in the North, she tells him:

'They say he can turn himself into a wolf when he wants to. They say he can't be killed.'

'And? Do you think that is true?', lord Tywin asks her. She knows about him as well. She knows why he never walks out in the sun, why he never touches the food on his plate. She knows that the dark liquid in his cup isn't wine.

'No', she says, and looks straight into his cold green eyes.

_Death can take lions as well as wolves. With fire and with valyrian steel or with a needle through the heart. _

'Anyone can be killed.'


	6. The-Viper

The Viper

Tyrion likes to think he is an excellent judge of character. He knows people's deepest desires and their deepest secrets. Perhaps it is a part of his heritage, though he hopes it's not.

One person he can't figure out, is Oberyn Martell. There is something mysterious about him, that much he knows.

Yesterday, Bronn tells him, he saw the prince talk to Varys, and when he did, the prince's eyes lighted up, yellow, and bright as the sun.

Tyrion has spitted through all his books, and finds nothing about the Martells of Dorne. After a while, he forgets about the strange prince.

Then, one day, Oberyn comes to visit him in the Black Cells, and shows him a huge trunk. Inside, there are hundreds of vials with eerie colors, sharp blades for daggers and spears, made out of the strangest metals.

'I can see the truth', Martell tells him.

'I know you can, as well. There are creatures among the mortal men, who use us when it suits them, and kill us when it suits them. Will you help me kill them, little man? Will you help me to bring them to justice?', Oberyn asks.

He picks up a dagger, of which the hilt is black as the night.

_Dragonglass_.

Tyrion has only heard of it, but he knows what it can do.

He thinks of Father and Cersei and Joffrey, all their hatred and spite. Then he thinks of Jaime, and his warm smile. But even his brother's heart is cold and still, and he too, has inflicted evil upon this world.

He looks prince Oberyn in the eyes.

'I will.'


	7. By-what-right

By what right...

With his eyes half-closed, naked as his nameday, he sits slumped in the bathtub. The bloody wench is staring at him, her eyes the brightest blue he has ever seen. She knows why he killed Aerys, and the price he paid for it. She knows what he is.

Brienne sits closer to him, and Jaime closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his mouth. It's all he can do to control himself.

'Jaime', Brienne says, quiet as a whisper.

_Not Kingslayer_, Jaime thinks, the corner of his mouth twitching.

'Jaime', she says again. Her voice is trembling.

'You will die, if you don't...'

'No.'

Jaime snaps his eyes open. He can see the veins pulsing in her neck, and when she offers her arm, her eyes wide with fear, he skids away.

'You don't know what that means.' She smells of life, so innocent and pure, and oh, he tries, wills himself to ignore it, to ignore the way it makes his mouth water.

She will die, or worse, become like him.

'I do', she says, and Jaime believes her. He had thought her to be as dumb as a mule, but the wench may be smarter than him.

'I trust you', she adds.

Jaime can feel a surge of warmth go through him, and for a moment, he almost feels alive.

So he opens his mouth, his jaw clicks open and his fangs come out, and he softly sinks his teeth into Brienne's arm. His vision goes black, and he forgets all around him. He knows that once it has begun, he can't stop.

But when she calls his name from far away, he manages to let go, and opens his eyes.

She is pale, and for a moment he panics, until she gently takes his hand, his only hand, and places it on her chest.

Beneath her ribs, there's a beating heart.


	8. Fist-of-the-first-men

Fist of the first men.

They are sitting around the fire, all of them. Jon on his left, Grenn next to him, and Edd on Sam's right. Well, not all of them, Pyp is still in Castle Black, but, well...

Sam thinks it's rather cozy, with snow falling around them. When he tells the others so, Grenn rolls his eyes, Edd mumbles something under his breath, and Jon gives him a pitying smile. Sam should hate that kind of smile, but the fact that Jon, who never smiles, does for him, warms his heart.

'Did you know', Sam starts, as he fiddles with his gloves,

'That there are many supernaturals north of the Wall? In fact, that is why the Night's Watch was created in the first place. To keep the supernaturals separated from the humans. Some got past the Wall anyway, but...'

He looks at Jon, who is staring back at him with huge, brown eyes. Sam would never reveal his secret, never.

'What kind of supernaturals?', asks Grenn.

'Oh, well... greenseers, skinchangers, Others...'

'Those are stories, Tarly. They were made up by stupid men with boring lives', Edd says, but Grenn looks baffled.

'How do you know all this?', he asks.

Edd groans, Jon laughs, and Sam gives his best friend a wink, because without him, he would have never known.

Grinning, he smugly says:

'I read it in a book.'


	9. Kissed-by-fire

**Kissed by fire. **

Ygritte pulls him closer by his coat.

'We're the same, you and I.'

'We're not.'

'We are.'

She traces a finger along his cheek, pushing a hair from his face.

'It's in your blood, Jon Snow, just as it's in mine. Magic. You don't have to keep it a secret here. You can let it out, be who you are.'

He wants to believe her, he craves it with all his heart. Part of him already does. But she's wrong.

'I'm a man of the Night's Watch', he says, his resolve already weakening.

Magic, indeed. Kissed by fire, and bewitched, bewitched, bewitched, this girl whose heart is hot as the snow around her is cold.

Brown eyes turn dark and black, and Ygritte steps away from him.

'The crows have killed hundreds of us. Of _our_ kind, mine and yours both. And still you choose them?'

She stretches her arms, and the wind catches her auburn hair. Face lit in the scarce light of the winter sun, she changes, until there's a fox standing where she stood a moment before. She sprints away, to the snowy mountains beyond, not looking back but expecting him to follow all the same.

Jon sighs.

Behind him is the Night's Watch, honor and duty and his friends. Sam, who _knows_, but can never understand. In front of him, the unknown. Adventure and freedom and kindred spirits.

He and Ygritte are not the same. She doesn't dream of scaled wings floating on the wind, she doesn't hear the flames of the campfire whisper to her in the dead of night. But for once, Jon doesn't care. His pitchblack cloak, both a burden and a vow, slides from his shoulders, his skin turning into fur pale as snow.

Then he follows.


	10. Dragonstone

**Dragonstone**

She was born during a storm like this one. Right here, in this very castle. The worst storm in living memory, Varys said.

After so many years of running and hiding, it feels unreal to be back in Dragonstone, back where she started. Where Aegon planned his conquest of Westeros, his sisters by his side.

And now, 300 years later, another Targaryen will conquer Westeros.

Her eyes are focused on the map as Tyrion tells her of his clever plan: taking empty castles here, stationing threatening armies there, everywhere, but in King's Landing. Her dragons are not involved, the wicked lion twins remain out of harm. When he's done, he looks up at her, eyes wide and hopeful.

'No', she says.

Daenerys plucks the Unsullied off Casterly Rock, and places them at King's Landing.

'The powerful have always preyed on the powerless. Isn't that what you said? They murder and slaughter the people they swore to protect, and afterwards, they feast on their remains. Not anymore.'

'Yes', Tyrion says, impatient, 'and that's why we have to take the Rock. We cannot attack King's Landing. The citizens will die, and my sister will not. She is not as easily killed as normal people.'

She thinks of all the times she walked into the flames and lived. She thinks of her dragons, who listen only to her, who understand her without her needing to say any words. She remembers orange flames licking at her skin, following her movements, obeying her whispered commands. That one time her own wings took her into the air, is etched into her memory.

'Cersei Lannister cannot walk in the sunlight without burning her skin. Tell me, lord Hand, what is sunlight, compared to dragonfire?'


	11. Tully’s-of-Riverrun

**The Tullys of Riverrun **

Robb is bent close across the map, as silent as his bannermen are loud.

They're calling for Lannister blood, but winning a battle is easier said than done. Robb looks at the wolf figures on the map, and at the lions, of which there are twice as many. He shakes his head.

'Mother?', he asks, looking up.

'Do you think you can be of any help?'

The Greatjon laughs, lord Karstark scowls, and Roose Bolton levels his cold, dead eyes at her. Ser Rodrick puts his hand on her arm, but she gently pulls away.

When has she ever denied her son anything?

True, she's no soldier or commander, and the full moon doesn't turn her into a powerful beast as it does her husband and her son, but she doesn't need that. Catelyn Stark, née Tully, has a strength far more delicate.

So, she agrees.

When the night is dark but for the silver moon, and the Lannister soldiers are quivering in their armor, dreading wolves on the horizon, they forget to fear what's behind them.

The grass slowly growing from the earth, coiling like snakes around their legs, trees uprooting themselves, moving forward, and leaving gaping holes behind. Hundreds of men, falling, or getting pulled into the abyss, the earth swallowing them up whole.

The wind getting stronger and stronger, whistling almost, sending horses panicking and sweeping men of their feet, the river swelling and creeping onto shore, dragging carts and catapults in it's wake, and all the while, Catelyn sits atop her horse, high on a hill, whispering into the night, while her son and his men cut through the Lannister forces like a knife through butter.

That is, until a giant wave rises from the river and swamps the entire battlefield at once.

Next to her, Brynden Tully, panting and coughing, says in a hoarse voice:

'You don't suppose that was too much, was it?


End file.
